The Heart is the Only Road to the Soul Part 1
by Mynameischris
Summary: Nick is a part time dishwasher at a Paris cafe but dreams of being much more. His daydreams soon start becoming reality as his world becomes more dream than reality.


**The story of love and life in a time of exile and despair. A Five Nights at Freddy's Fanfiction**

 **It all began in the washroom of a fifth street cafe in Paris. The evening dew had just settled on the plates and glasses outside when Nick walked over to the back room. The crusty porcelain plates jingled as he strode over to the rooms gaping interior. Nick set them in the sink, grabbed his broom, and leaned against the sink. He closed his eyes and began to dream of another place, another time, somewhere on a train...**

 **The train went on up the track out of sight, around one of the hills of burnt timber. Nick sat down** **on the bundle of canvas and bedding the baggage man had pitched out of the door of the baggage** **car. There was no town, nothing but the rails and the burned-over country. The thirteen saloons** **that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House** **hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was** **left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.**

 **Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered** **houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river** **was there. It swirled against the log spires of the bridge. Nick looked down into the clear, brown** **water, colored from the pebbly bottom, and watched the trout keeping themselves steady in the** **current with wavering fins. As he watched them they changed their again by quick angles, only to** **hold steady in the fast water again. Nick watched them a long time.**

 **He watched them holding themselves with their noses into the current, many trout in deep, fast** **moving water, slightly distorted as he watched far down through the glassy convex surface of the** **pool its surface pushing and swelling smooth against the resistance of the log-driven piles of the bridge. At the bottom of the pool were the big trout. Nick did not see them at first. Then he saw** **them at the bottom of the pool, big trout looking to hold themselves on the gravel bottom in a** **varying mist of gravel and sand, raised in spurts by the current.**

 **Nick looked down into the pool from the bridge. It was a hot day. A kingfisher flew up the** **stream. It was a long time since Nick had looked into a stream and seen trout. They were very** **satisfactory. As the shadow of the kingfisher moved up the stream, a big trout shot upstream in a** **long angle, only his shadow marking the angle, then lost his shadow as he came through the** **surface of the water, caught the sun, and then, as he went back into the stream under the surface,** **his shadow seemed to float down the stream with the current unresisting, to his post under the** **bridge where he tightened facing up into the current.**

 **Nick's heart tightened as the trout moved. He felt all the old feeling. He turned and looked down** **the stream. It stretched away, pebbly-bottomed with shallows and big boulders and a deep pool as** **it curved away around the foot of a bluff.**

 **Nick walked back up the ties to where his pack lay in the cinders beside the railway track. He was** **happy. He adjusted the pack harness around the bundle, pulling straps tight, slung the pack on** **his back got his arms through the shoulder straps and took some of the pull off his shoulders by leaning his forehead against the wide band of the tump-line Still, it was too heavy. It was much** **too heavy. He had his leather rod-case in his hand and leaning forward to keep the weight of the** **pack high on his shoulders he walked along the road that paralleled the railway track, leaving the burned town behind in the heat, and shell turned off around a hill with a high, fire-scarred hill on** **either side onto a road that went back into the country. He walked along the road feeling, the** **ache from the pull of the heavy pack. The road climbed steadily. It was hard work walking up-hill His muscles ached and the day was hot, but Nick felt happy. He felt he had left everything behind,** **the need for thinking, the need to write, other needs, It was all back of him.**

 **From the time he had gotten down off the train and the baggage man had thrown his pack out of** **the open car door things had been different Seney was burned, the country was burned over and** **changed, but it did not matter. It could not all be burned that. He hiked along the road, sweating** **in the sun, climbing to cross the range of hills that separated the railway from the pine plains.**

 **The road ran on, dipping occasionally, but always climbing hill. He went pm up Finally the road** **after going parallel to the burnt hill he reached the top. Nick leaned back against a stump and** **slipped out of the pack harness. Ahead of him, as far as he could see, was the pine plain. The burned country stopped of off at the left pith the range of hills. 011 ahead islands of dark pine** **trees rose out of the plain Far off to the left was the line of the river. Nick followed it with his eye** **and caught glints of the water in the sun.**

 **There was nothing but the pine plain ahead of him, until the far blue hills that marked the Lake** **Superior height of land. He could hardly see them faint and far away in the heat-light over the plain.** **If he looked too steadily they were gone. But if he only half-looked they were there, the far-off hills of the height of land.**

 **Nick sat down against the charred stump and smoked a cigarette. His pack balanced on the top** **of the stump harness holding ready, a hollow molded in it from his back. Nick sat smoking,** **looking out over the country He did not need to get his map out. He knew where he was from the position of the river.**

 **As he smoked his legs stretched out in front of him, he noticed a grasshopper walk along the** **ground and up onto his woolen sock. The grasshopper was black. As he had walked along the** **road, climbing, he had started grasshoppers from with dust. They were all black They were not** **the big grasshoppers with yellow and black or red and black wings whirring out from their black** **wing sheathing as they fly up. These were just ordinary hoppers, but all a sooty black in color.** **Nick had wondered about them as he walked without really thinking about them. Now, as he watched the black hopper that was nibbling at the wool of his sock with its four way lip he realized** **that they had all turned black from living in the I burned-over land. He realized that the fire must** **have come the year before, but the grasshoppers were all black now. He wondered how long they would stay that way.**

 **Carefully he reached his hand down and took hold of the hopper by the wings. He turned him up,** **all his legs walking in the air, and looked at his jointed belly. Yes, it was black too, iridescent** **where the back and head were dusty.**

 **"Go on, hopper," Nick said, speaking out loud for the first time "Fly away somewhere."**

 **He tossed the grasshopper up into the air and watched him sail away to a charcoal stump across** **the road.**

 **Nick stood up. He leaned his back against the weight of his pack where it rested upright on the** **stump and got his arms through the shoulder straps. He stood with the pack on his back on the** **brow of the hill looking out across the country, toward the distant river and then struck down the hillside away from the road. Underfoot the ground was good walking. Two hundred yards down** **the fire line stopped. Then it was sweet fern, growing ankle high, walk through, and clumps of** **jack pines; a long undulating country with frequent rises and descents, sandy underfoot and the country alive again.**

 **Nick kept his direction by the sun. He knew where he wanted to strike the river and he kept on** **through the pine plain, mounting small rises to see other rises ahead of him and sometimes from** **the top of a rise a great solid island of pines off to his right or his left He broke off some sprigs of the Leathery sweet fern, and put them under his pack straps. The chafing crushed it and he** **smelled it as he walked..**

 **Nick spotted up ahead in a closing clearing a woman standing in the shade. She wore a revealing tattered overalls that looked and smelled much like wet socks. As Nick approached, she turned to him slowly, arms outstretched, welcoming him to her. Nick approached hesitantly as he had believed this are would have been abandoned. He walked closer hesitantly at first, but gained more confidence and strove forward.**

 **"Hello." He managed to squeak before she rushed towards him arms outright like daggers driving to his throat.**

 **Nick tried to move, but his feet seemed like solid rock, melded with the soil after years of neglect. She leapt atop him thrusting him to the group and sending his pack flying off. He struggled under he impossibly powerful grip as he held his hands down with hers and his legs down with her knees.**

 **"Hello..." She grinned revealing a perfect row of razor sharp teeth. Her eyes scanned Nick's body first his trimmed hair, his unbuttoned shirt, and finally his protruding pants. She made a sound similar to that of a cat mewing, almost like a "owo". She stared defiantly at his bulge, "What's this?" she gaped.**


End file.
